


To the Sky

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Series: Tales of a Dragon and His Prince [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Actually Learning About Other Things, Banter, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Dragon Culture, Dragon Merlin (Merlin), Fluff and Humor, Flying, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pre-Relationship, They're Both Dumb And In Love Even If They Don't Realise It Yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: Being acquainted with Merlin means having one's world views constantly and pointedly challenged, being forced to acknowledge some occasional uncomfortable truths, and learning things one would never think to even ask about, but Arthur can't deny he enjoys the experience."Will you show me something new? Someplace I haven't seen, someplace people don't get to see?" he asks.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Tales of a Dragon and His Prince [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737112
Comments: 18
Kudos: 433





	To the Sky

"Shake your head, Arthur, your eyes seem to be stuck."

"Shut up, Merlin."

"Are you just going to stand there and stare at me all day? It was _your_ idea to come out here."

"Shut _up."_

Rumbling lowly, Merlin—Merlin the dragon, that is—sits back on his haunches with tail coiled neatly around his feet like some prim, haughty feline waiting for treats, twitching those ridiculous fan ears of his, and Arthur just _knows_ he's being laughed at. Who ever knew a dragon's face could be capable of expressing such sarcasm?

"You really want me to fly with you?" Arthur asks, hands on his hips as he stares at his manservant-turned-dragon. Unease sits in the pit of his belly. He isn't _afraid_ of heights, per se—he walks the ramparts regularly and has admired the view from cliffs before. But ramparts and cliffs don't _move._ "And I'll…sit on your back, I suppose?"

"Well, I'll not have you sit on my head, clotpole."

He moves to fold his arms over his chest instead, chewing the corner of his mouth. Yes, fine, this had been his idea, lodged in the back of his mind ever since Merlin offered to show him his kingdom from above, and whilst the idea of well-and-truly riding a _dragon_ like some wild adventurer from a bard's tale does carry a certain appeal, he is also very much aware of the fact that he will be riding _Merlin,_ and that is just…. Well, he's not sure what it is. But it's definitely _something._ Which is why they've been standing here in this clearing for the past quarter hour.

"Don't think too hard, you may strain something."

"Gods' mercy, do you ever shut up?"

"Not really. I could always carry you in my claws if you prefer," Merlin offers candidly.

His gaze drops to said claws on reflex, eyes widening slightly. Merlin's feet—hands? Paws?—could span a shield. He has four toes instead of three like the other dragon had, a grasping thumb to the rear, and the claws tipping each digit are the length of Arthur's hand, black as horn and predatorily curved. He remembers how the other dragon had ripped through maille and flesh like a hot blade through butter, and he represses a shudder. "No, thank you."

"Then up you get." Merlin folds his limbs and presses his belly flush to the ground, looking like a serpent grown to colossal size. "Sit just in the front of my shoulders. My neck isn't much wider than Llamrei's back at the nape."

Oh, hells. He steps up to the dragon. With Merlin laying down like this, he isn't much higher than Llamrei either, though his favourite mare isn't near so fearsome in size. Nor does she breathe fire. Or fly. Taking a deep breath, he reaches both arms over Merlin's back to pull himself up, expecting it to be at least somewhat like mounting a horse; what he doesn't expect is for Merlin's forequarters give a powerful jerk under his touch, strong enough to stagger him back a step, tripping on his own feet and going to his back hard. "Hey!" Arthur exclaims, sitting up on his elbows. "The hell was that for?"

"Sorry, sorry," Merlin says, his hide shivering all over, scales rattling together. "Ticklish."

"Idiot." Getting to his feet, he brushes his hands off on his trousers. "Maybe I ought to put my jacket over your back first, like a saddle blanket. Would that help?"

Merlin's ears fold back. "I'm not a _horse._ Just try again. I'm expecting it now, I won't do it again."

Arthur narrows his eyes at Merlin, but then he steps back over; when he rests his hands on Merlin's back, he feels another small shiver go through the broad shoulders. Merlin has no saddle, obviously, but the base of his neck truly isn't much wider than a horse's body. Bracing a foot against the dragon's foreleg and grasping the bony back-ridge with one hand, he pulls himself up and swings his leg over in one swift motion, gripping tight with his knees.

Merlin rumbles and gives another of those full shudders that rattles his scales as he lurches upright; Arthur throws his arms around the neck in front of him, holding tight. The dragon's wings open and flutter half-heartedly, his tail lashes, and his hind feet stomp against the ground, flattening the grass. The armoured fans unfold from under his horn crest, rattling against his scales.

"Merlin?" Arthur asks uneasily, glancing downward. A fall from _this_ height will hurt much more than just a trip and fall. "Do you want me to get off?"

"Yes, but don't. I need to get used to it." Merlin shakes his head, spiny fans folding in again, and he twists his long neck around to look back at Arthur with one amber eye. "You're like an itch I can't scratch there," he remarks, snout wrinkling slightly to flash white fangs—his approximation of a smile. "I'm going to walk up to the cliffs before I try flying with you. I wouldn't want to shake you off at the cloudline."

"I'd rather you didn't," Arthur agrees, then yelps as Merlin lurches into motion, clutching tightly at his neck. "Hellfire, warn me first!"

A rumble of laughter like grinding stones. "Yes, my lord. Also, do you think you could refrain from putting your knees through my neck?"

The words make Arthur realise that he'd tightened his grip on reflex when Merlin started walking; his thighs are starting to ache from squeezing so tight, digging his knees in against hard scale. He slackens his grip a little, trying to relax into the rhythm of the dragon's stride like he'd been taught when he first learnt to ride.

"You alright back there?"

"Fine. It isn't really like riding a horse, you know. You're more side-to-side than up-and-down. It's a little strange," he muses, holding Merlin's back-ridge for lack of any other place to put his hands. They aren't quite spines, nor are they exactly sharp, thankfully, and it's something to hold onto. A blanket might have done well, because a dragon's scales are rougher than a horse's flanks, and he shifts his seat, trying to find a comfortable place. After a moment, he carefully shrugs his jacket off, one sleeve at a time, and pulls it under him, for lack of anything better. The rocking of Merlin's stride is a little disorienting but once he gets the trick of swaying with it, it's almost soothing.

The dragon makes track through the forest at a much faster clip than any other beast. Brambles and thorns scrape harmlessly off his scale, young saplings bend aside for his bulk, and low-hanging branches are lifted out of the way by arching wings. He steps over a deadfall as neatly as a man stepping over a branch. They make it up the steep hillside to the cliff in not even half the time it would've taken them to walk, not in the least surprising considering how long Merlin's legs are. Once they're up on the cliffs, Arthur feels his pulse rise again, staring over the edge of the cliff. It is…very far down.

With a sound like canvas sails unfurling, Merlin opens his long, narrow wings out to their fullest, arching bones aligning. The skin stretched between them looks no thicker than parchment, subtle patterns of blue-purple playing out over the thin hide, faint pearlescent marks at the edges of the sails. "Ready?" he asks.

_Not in the slightest._ "Yes."

"Then hold tight." Merlin backs up two paces; Arthur feels the steel-cable muscles under him gather and bunch, and then the dragon is leaping forward. One, two, and then they're over the cliff and plummeting down, down, down at terrifying speed. Arthur screams, sound lost to the roaring of the wind—Merlin's wings flare wide and tilt—they launch upward like a bolt from a crossbow. The abrupt change in pressure makes Arthur's head swim and his ears ache, stomach in his feet and heart in his throat and everything else shaken like a terrier's rat, and yet, and yet, it is the most exhilarating sensation, incomparable.

Merlin levels out at the cloudline, and only then does he tilt his head to look back at Arthur. "Are you well?"

"Well? This…this is…rapturous!" he calls back, having to raise his voice to be heard over the wind.

"Enjoy."

He loosens his arms and sits up, holding tight with his knees to keep his seat; knowing they're too high up to be heard, he draws in a breath and lets out a loud whooping cry for sheer glee. "Why do you ever come down? I'd never land! I'd find the highest mountains and never leave the clouds!"

"You've never experienced a storm in the heights, Arthur. We like it cool and dark, but not ice-coated with winds howling."

"Oh, don't talk to me about storms. I don't want to think about that. I want to touch the clouds again," Arthur laughs, holding his arms out to his sides in an imitation of the dragon's gliding wings.

"I'm going lower. I think you need thicker air," Merlin remarks.

With a tilt of wing, they go further down, far enough down that he could make out individual trees instead of just green blurs; keeping tight grip, Arthur leans a little to one side, peering downwards. All his kingdom is laid out below him, like a map given life. There is the city, the citadel gleaming like a splinter of white marble, roads growing out from it like creeping vines, forking and spreading; he could blot out the whole of it with his thumb from this height. Merlin coasts along neatly as a gliding raptor, adjusting course with only the slightest tilt and twitch of his wingtips, turning them away from the city and towards the outer provinces. Less to see, but less chance of being seen.

He isn't used to seeing the world this way, but it is still familiar to him, these hedgerows and roads, the fields and meadows, traced by the brown and blue ribbons of roads and rivers. There, a herd of sheep out to pasture, rendered small as children's toys, and even smaller, the shepherd tending to them, accompanied by a small, speeding black spot he presumes to be a herd-dog. It makes him smile. "The maps you could make like this…. If I weren't a prince, I could make a living as a cartographer," he muses. Matter of fact, he thinks when they get back to Camelot, he is going to have to do some editing of the maps he does have.

"You'd need me to fly you around, though. Half that coin is mine."

"Like hell it is." Arthur leans forward until he's lying flush to Merlin's neck, wrapping both arms around. "Will you show me something new? Someplace I haven't seen, someplace _people_ don't get to see?" he asks.

For a moment, the only sound is the rushing wind, and then Merlin says, "Of course." One wing dips in slightly, and then they're turning, banking around. His pulse rises in his throat as Merlin's body tilts into it, expecting to slide right off his back, but instead, strangely enough, he feels as though he's being pressed tighter into the dragon's back.

Merlin levels out once he gains…well, whatever heading he'd been after and begins flying with some purpose, wings going in steady rhythm. Arthur peers over his shoulder at the ground far below, trying to gain his bearing and find out their direction, then frowns. They're making west, and the only thing to the west other than Camelot is Caerleon's kingdom and the bloody sea. What does Merlin mean to do, take him to Éire? He didn't mean to go _that_ far.

Except once the sharp, jutting peaks of the White Mountains come into view, Merlin slows again, resuming his more leisurely glide, his head turning this way and that as if searching for something. Like a place to land. "Merlin?" He thumps a hand against the side of the dragon's neck. "Merlin, if you leave me at the top of a mountain, I'll hang your head above my mantel."

"What about inside the mountain?"

"Inside the—?" Arthur breaks off in a startled yelp and clutches Merlin's neck as the dragon abruptly tilts downwards, gliding in low between the spurs of the mountains. Well, it certainly is a place people don't get to see. Even the most well-seasoned traveler hasn't been able to explore all of the mountain range. Not exactly what he had in mind, but….

Whatever his thought had been, it vanishes from his mind as Merlin rounds a cliff-point and he sees the cave.

The pale stone which gives the range its name has been shaped and carved to form a kind of gallery, leading down into the yawning darkness midway up one of the greater mountains. Great arches of rock, thicker than grandfather oaks, thicker than castle turrets, sweep up and over like the ribcage of some earthen leviathan, space enough left between for Merlin to fly down between them towards the cave mouth, though that too is more regular and finished than any other he's seen. Merlin widens his wings out to arrest his descent, then folds them in as he lands on the stony shelf just before the cave proper. Bending his forelegs, he lowers his forequarters, clearly intending for Arthur to get down.

Except Arthur might've been able to climb up well enough, but climbing down is another. He clutches Merlin's back-ridge with both hands as he tries to get off as he would dismount from the saddle. Except, just as Merlin said, he isn't on a horse. "Oh hell!" Arthur yelps as he loses footing, rolls over Merlin's shoulder, and lands solidly on his arse on the smooth stone ground, clacking his teeth together hard enough he could've bitten through his tongue.

"Elegant."

"Bugger yourself. Where are we?" he asks as he gains his feet clumsily, trying to flex the ache out of his legs. He doesn't give into the temptation of rubbing the ache out of his back, but he does lean over to try and massage the pain from his knees. He'll have bruises there for certain, having pressed his knees so hard to the ridges of Merlin's scales, and the inside of his thighs feel chafed tender. Clearly, riding a dragon is like everything else—wondrous in a bard's song, but decidedly unwonderful in reality. "Also, how did I stay on when you tilted sideways like that? Did you use your magic?"

Merlin snorts in amusement as he straightens, folding in wings. "No, of course not. That's just speed and force. It's like when you swing a bucket of water over your head really fast and the water doesn't fall out," he replies.

Arthur stares at him.

"What? You've never done that?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, it's the same thing. You've just got to be going fast enough for it, that's all. And as to where we are, well…you wanted someplace people don't go." Merlin gestures with an arch of his wings. "This is Vhaladharis. It's the meeting place of the Great Dragons. No man has ever set foot in here."

"Val—what?"

"Vhaladharis."

He tries twice more to say the Drakine word, then gives up; dragon-tongue is not an easy tune for men to sing. Instead, he turns to look around at the cave where they've landed. The chamber, he corrects himself. Chamber, not cavern, for even though the bones of the earth can be seen, no part of this place has not been shaped by artistry of some sort. "This is…beautiful," Arthur says as he steps forward, sounds echoing softly off the vast walls in a soft murmur. "No man, you said? How was this place built, then? Surely not by the dragons?"

"Of course we built it. We mined into the mountain from the top. Come on, I'll show you." Merlin lightly flicks the tip of his tail at Arthur, then gestures with his muzzle to the interior of the mountain, where the entryway narrows down into a passageway. Well, _narrows_ only in a technical sense because the corridor is still broad enough for three wagons to ride abreast of each other and still have room for porters on each side.

The mouth of the corridor is marked with a grand archway, polished almost completely smooth, winding patterns like flames curling up the sides. Inlaid in the gleaming stone at the top of the arch are swathes of glittering colour—red, blue, green, black, copper, and gold, like crushed gemstones embedded in the stone. They don't follow a pattern, nor are they uniform, but they all seem to fit together nonetheless. As they enter the passageway, Merlin lifts his head and exhales softly against the wall, and a soft thread of light appears, like a vein of gold light running through the stone, running the length of the corridor and illuminating the way.

"How do dragons mine?" Arthur asks, stepping closer to the wall underneath the light. The walls of the corridors are full of carvings, some of them a handspan deep. After a few moments of staring, he realises that it's a story, a history of dragons—and Dragonlords—in Alba, though he doesn't exactly follow all it tells, as he cannot read their script.

"I don't think I've ever heard you ask so many questions before, you know that?" comes the amused reply.

Arthur traces his fingertips over the engravings, tracing the outline of a dragon in flight. One shows a dragon flying over a mass of small figures he thinks are men, though he isn't certain if they're hunting the dragon, or if it's chasing them. Or is it leading them, perhaps? The long, narrow wings put him in mind of Merlin's. "Empty of knowledge," he muses.

"What?"

"To be full of questions is to be empty of knowledge. Something an old tutor of mine used to say. So, dragons mining?"

Merlin snorts a plume of smoke, neck arching, and he taps his claws against the ground in thought. "Well, it's not the way you think of mining, exactly. We use water."

"Water?" Arthur echoes in disbelief. That's almost as ridiculous as the nonsense about the bucket. How could water undo solid stone?

"Well, yes. We can fill our stomachs with water and then bring it all back up again, and once the stone is wet, we breathe fire over it. The steam expanding in the cracks, coupled with sudden heat, splits the stone."

Arthur shakes his head in disbelief, turning his gaze back to the wall, moving slowly along. "What do the colours mean?" he asks, gesturing back over his shoulder towards the arch.

"Those are the colours of the Great Dragons. The lesser lines, they come in all sorts of colours, usually more than one, but the Great Dragons are uniform."

He tries to remember what colour the other dragon was. Gold, he thinks, or copper. Gold. Yes, definitely gold. He looks up at Merlin's glossy hide, deep black until the light shines across it, revealing ripples of purple and greenish-blue, save for the small splash of pale cream under his jaw and throat. "Was…was your father a black dragon, too then?"

Merlin is quiet for a moment, tail swiping. "No. He was red. But my grandfather was a black, and I think his father was a copper. Colours do tend to repeat in family lines," he answers at last.

"How do you know? I mean, I didn't think Balinor would've had time to tell you all that."

"He didn't. Dragons have a way of…communicating mind-to-mind, a kind of ancestral memory. It's passed naturally from sire to son, and we can pass them on to others who aren't kin to us, too. Kilgharrah's been giving me his as…as he has no other to pass them to."

They continue down the corridor as they speak, voices echoing off the high-arching ceiling. The floor is surprisingly smooth, almost polished underfoot. How many claws and tails must it have taken, how many years, to wear the stone down thus? "So, you have memories from Balinor?"

"Not _everything_ , of course, but some things, yes. Heritages, traditions, legends. Important things."

"Sounds useful to me," he muses, then stops. He had noticed the corridor sloping upwards, but ahead of them, the corridor suddenly dead-ends. "Uhm…"

Chortling, Merlin swats him with a wing. "Up, clotpole," he says, and Arthur looks upwards. The corridor _doesn't_ end, it simply changes direction, becoming a vertical shaft leading sharply upwards, and further up, he can see a faint light. Merlin nudges him again. "Come on, up on my back again. There's no stairs." He dips his shoulder slightly, cocking his foreleg.

Using the limb as a step, Arthur pulls himself up to the dragon's back again, holding tight with arms and legs as Merlin climbs up the shaft. There are hollows gouged out of the walls in regular intervals, well-spaced to provide neat holds for Merlin to climb with.

When they reach level ground once more, Arthur slides off Merlin's back to his feet and stares. There's little else he can do.

This chamber is larger than even the entrance to the mountain, so vast that the far side of it is little more than a murky haze. The convex ceiling vaults high overhead, room enough for Merlin to comfortably take wing and fly if he so wished it, but the very top narrows up into a shaft that opens to the sky, airing the chamber and admitting the bright spill of sunlight which glitters on a pool of green water, large as a pond. They truly had mined into the mountain from the peak. Ringing the chamber are spaced daises with stonework rising up and out from the platforms, curving and narrowing like upturned talons.

"That's where the elders sat, dragon and Dragonlord," Merlin says, gesturing to the nearest dais with a wingtip.

Arthur ceases gaping to turn and look, wandering closer. The stone has the same smooth, polished look of the floors, only shinier, with ripples eternally caught across the stone like the patterns that sometimes appear in folded steel. "It's beautiful. How does it look like this?" he wonders, reaching up to run his hand over one of the curved lofts. It's perfectly smooth, as though he's touching glass; perhaps it's only his own imagination, but it feels warm.

"Dragonfire. Step back." Once Arthur moves away, Merlin arches his long neck and blows fire over it. The flames flow along the heat-ripples in the stone, lingering and burning bright, the polished stone reflecting the light back again, rendering the whole thing aglow. He wonders how long it must've taken to fire all the lofts in such a way, to create fire hot enough to melt stone, to make it malleable enough to shape.

"Merlin." He closes his mouth a moment, swallowing hard past the sudden, unexpected tightness in his throat. Aware of the dragon's amber gaze on him, he scrubs both hands over his face, blowing out a heavy breath. "Thank you," he says at last; his voice sounds so small in the vast hush of the chamber. "Thank you for bringing me here, showing me all of this. It's—this is—" He shakes his head once, words failing. To know that no man has ever set foot here, to know that Merlin has brought _him_ here, of all people…. "Thank you."

Merlin lowers his head down to Arthur's level and gently nudges him with his muzzle; Arthur smiles weakly, resting a hand on the end of the dragon's nose, curling his fingers around the small jut of horn between the wide nostrils. Those big fan ears twitch, and then a forked tongue flickers out, dragging up Arthur's chest in a swipe of slightly damp warmth.

"Eugh, _Mer_ lin!" he exclaims, pushing away the muzzle. "You are revolting, you know that?"

The dragon's laughter echoes through the chamber. "You were sounding so polite for a moment there, I had to make certain you were still yourself." Lowering his head once more, he nudges Arthur again, this time playfully, those ridiculous ears of his twitching with glee; the end of his tail thumps against the floor.

Grinning, Arthur reaches up to tug the edge of one ear. "Come on, you overgrown lizard. Let's go home."


End file.
